by Stormy Glenn
In an instant, the sword and man were gone, and the ballet of action continued. Dario watched the fascinating Beaumont twist and turn in the air. When the small man caught a foot to the head, Dario stiffened and his lip curled in displeasure.
“This is what keeps them alive out in the field,” a deep, low voice murmured near Dario’s ear.
Dario looked up at the huge gargoyle watching his mate spring into the air and flip around, dull black fighting stars ready to snap from his fingertips. With beautiful grace, Beau dropped to the floor, out of the star’s line of fire, and rolled before coming up behind Bailey. Dario’s breath caught at the sensual movements.
“He’s a good fighter,” Vey said.
“He’s magnificent.” Dario was totally entranced. He was positive that he could stand there and watch Beau perform his battle dance for the rest of his days.
The interruption of Dominic running into the room through the side door tore Dario’s attention away from his mate. He growled, not happy about the intrusion.
“Basil,” Dominic called out as he waved a black tablet in the air. “Your tablet is going crazy.” There was no way anyone could miss the pinging sound coming from the electronic device.
It was very annoying.
Behind Dominic, his brother Salvador followed him into the room. Dario found it amusing how Salvador made sure he was at his brother’s side as much as possible. He also knew the cause of Salvador’s actions was now leaning against the doorframe leading to the ballroom.
It seemed Salvador was leading Dario’s brother, Alberto, on a merry chase. The attempt at avoiding the inevitable was futile. Being Alberto’s one and only had already sealed Salvador’s fate.
The brothers ran over to surround Basil as he took the tablet and started tapping away at the screen. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath.
Dario stiffened at Basil’s excited chatter. “I found another lab,” Basil said. “It’s an hour north of here. It was in the files on that tablet Vey brought back for us. The communication between the two labs was practically nonstop.”
His curiosity piqued, Dario moved closer, hanging just on the edges of the conversation. He, of course, knew of the labs. Everyone did. There hadn’t been a ton of them in Europe, but there had been some. They had been largely ineffective. Dario couldn’t understand how they had become such a dangerous entity here in the states.
“I’ve read through all the communications and I know they have at least ten paranormals there, if not more,” Basil continued. “We need to go in and get them out.”
“I agree,” Clay said. “We need a floor plan and information on their security.”
“I’ve already tapped into their security and I’m downloading a copy of the floor plans as we speak. I’d like to wait until I can get an accurate count of the guards before we make a move. With ten paranormals, this place has to be more guarded than normal.”
“Good idea.” Clay’s gaze lifted from the tablet and he began issuing orders. “Beau, Bax, gather what supplies we may need. Vey, Bailey, make sure the van is loaded. Meet in the dining room as soon as you’re done. We’ll leave for the lab just as soon as we’ve gone over everything.”
Dario’s eyebrow cocked when all of the brothers except Clay groaned. What was that all about?
Chapter Two
Beau could feel eyes on him as he geared up for the mission. He knew if he looked up, eyes as black as Hades would be watching his every move. He didn’t understand why he had become so fascinating to the prince. There was nothing riveting about him. He was dull as dishwater, and he knew it.
Still, Beau glanced up through the fall of his long hair. Sure enough, the prince’s eyes were pinned on him. He was talking to the man standing next to him, but his gaze never wavered. Beau assumed the two men were related, considering how much they looked alike.
Beau tried to ignore the prince as he finished getting ready and then walked over to stand next to Clay. He knew his job would be to blend into his surroundings as he snuck into the facility they were about to infiltrate. For some reason, if he stood perfectly still, he became nearly invisible to the human eye.
Maybe that was why no one ever saw him?
Beau frowned at that thought and shot the prince another look. The guy was still staring at him. Beau hadn’t become invisible to him, so why couldn’t anyone else see him unless he spoke up?
Beau cleared his throat. He expected the surprised look Clay shot him, as if his brother hadn’t known he was there. “What would you like me to cover?”
“I’d like you to search the ground floor and then work your way up. Look for anything that might give us information on this lab and who they are holding. We need to make sure we thoroughly search each floor so we don’t miss any paranormals that these freaks might be holding captive.”
Beau nodded. He understood his job. It was one he’d had in the past and one he suspected he would have in the future. Since he was missed by humans, it made sneaking into secure places that much easier.
Now that he had his assignment, Beau stepped back into the corner. He actually kind of preferred it there. It was quiet and out of the way of all the hubbub that seemed to surround his brothers.
He grabbed his long hair and started braiding it. The dark strands hung almost to his waist, so having it loose was dangerous. Not only could an opponent grab a hold of it during a fight, but he could get it caught in something. There was also the whole ‘leaving evidence behind’ thing. Wearing the full head masks helped with that, but there was always a possibility.
Speaking of masks…Beau finished braiding his hair and then reached to his belt and grabbed his hood. After tucking his braid into the back of his shirt, Beau pulled his hood down over his head. He secured the hood’s ends and then tucked the edges of the material under his shirt. Once he pulled his gloves on, he was covered in black from head to toe except for the small opening in his hood where his eyes were.
Beau froze when he glanced up and found Dario still watching him. There was a bit more of an angry glower to the man’s intense stare, and Beau had the strangest feeling that the anger was aimed at him. He just didn’t understand why. When Clay ordered everyone to mount up, Beau knew he didn’t have time to figure it out, either.
Dismissing the man from his mind, Beau headed outside to the van. He needed to be concentrating on the mission, not the hard stare of some vampire he had known all of one day. It didn’t matter how handsome the man was, or that Beau had prickles of awareness rippling up his spine.
Beau climbed into the van and settled into his usual seat at the back near the rear doors. He preferred being as close to an exit as he could get. He knew it came from being locked in a cage when the scientists had them, but he had never quite been able to get past the need to have an escape route at all times.
His eyes rounded when Dario and the other vampire climbed into the vehicle behind Baxter, Dominic, and a now wide-eyed Sal. Beau wondered what that was about. Baxter and Dominic sat down next to Beau, giving him a bit of a buffer between him and the others. Beau was grateful for that. He didn’t think he would have been able to sit next to Dario the entire trip.
The ride to the lab facility seemed to take a lot more time than Beau had thought it would. By the time they pulled up in an alley, Beau was ready to chew his way through the side of the van to get away from the tension that had mounted since the moment everyone piled into the vehicle. Beau suspected it had to do with the fact that the two vampires had insisted on coming with them.
While everyone used the side door to leave the van, Beau opened the back doors and climbed out. He closed them and then drew in a calming breath. He needed to settle his nerves before he made a mistake.
When Clay began to speak in a low tone, rehashing the mission plan, Beau stayed near the back of the van, listening. When everyone started to head off, Beau slipped around the edge of the van and into the shadows. He pushed everything else to the back of his mind and concentrated on
his part in the mission.
Getting into the lab facility was a lot easier than he expected it to be. The two armed guards manning the entrance never even noticed when he slipped past them, following a man in a suit into the building. Beau hoped it was as easy for his brothers to get inside.
Moving along and following the floor plan he had memorized, Beau began checking rooms. He wasn’t surprised when the first few were empty. They seemed more like offices than anything, but as he moved farther into the facility, the damp cold of disappointment settled next to ache of despair in Beau’s soul.
They were too late. The paranormals had either been moved or killed.
Or so he thought, until he slipped into the last room on the ground level. The high-tech lab was dim, vast, and empty, except for two people dressed in white standing before a black-countered work station bathed in a spotlight. Beau pushed away his first instincts to kill, maim, or torture. It was more important to examine the large metal cages lining one wall.
While breathing deeply through his nose and trying to catch any scent of shifters, Beau scanned the cages. If he and his brothers could rescue one paranormal in these labs from torture and death, he would consider it a victory. So far, this mission had turned up nothing. And that’s what these cages held—nothing.
“How much longer before the subject gives birth?”
The question turned Beau’s attention back to the two humans in white. A man wearing black glasses shifted his weight from foot to foot. Spikes of sour fear sliced through the air around him. This man was afraid of the woman who wore a mask of thick makeup and sharp, tall high heels.
Beau concentrated on thickening the veil of camouflage that covered him. His years of experiments in a lab much like this one resulted in his ability to blend into the background. It was during their first few missions that Beau had discovered that, if he stood in one spot and waited, his prey couldn’t see him.
He didn’t think his brothers even noticed it. It had become normal for Beau to be overlooked. He never mentioned it to his brothers. They knew the changes that the experiments had caused in each other, but for some reason it was never talked about. Beau sometimes thought they were all secretly ashamed of no longer being normal.
The man cleared his throat before saying, “Um, her body is showing signs of preparing for birth. We feel it shouldn’t be more than a few days.”
“I want to see her.” The woman’s crisp, cold demand sent chills up the back of Beau’s neck. She radiated evil.
When she turned her face from scrutinizing the paperwork on the counter to looking at the man, it took every ounce of Beau’s control not to jerk back in surprise. It was the same woman who they had rescued from the lab where his brother Bailey had found his mate. It was the woman who they had originally thought was Nicky’s mother, a baby that was back at their house with the housekeeper. The little guy mystified them all by demonstrating crazy gifts that were beyond anything they had ever seen.
Beau watched the man reach under the counter and press a button. The side wall of the lab slid open, revealing a writhing, pregnant woman secured to a bed. One sniff told Beau she was human, but the being she was carrying wasn’t.
“Is the thing inside of her in distress?” The woman’s tone was still demanding and didn’t contain wasn’t one iota of concern.
“No,” the man answered. “Since the thing has settled into her pelvis area, she’s complained the walls of her stomach hurt. But we aren’t concerned about that.”
“Fine.” The woman snapped up her paperwork from the counter. “Keep me informed.”
In a cloud of thick perfume, the woman walked past Beau and out the door.
The man studied the sweating, crying woman.
“Please, it feels like razor blades are cutting my insides up.” The woman’s eyes glowed neon green. Beau bled for the woman. The experiments performed on her human body had to have been brutal.
“I have no doubt it hurts.” There was no sympathy in the man’s tone. “The last scan showed one inch claws on that creature inside of you. We have a metal crate lined with electricity waiting for it when it comes out.”
The woman began sobbing. A wet, moldy blanket of despair coated the room.
Disgust sent waves of anger pulsing through Beau. Even if he wasn’t sure if demons were real, one must have cast some kind of spell on these people. What they had done to this woman was evil to the core.
The man picked up a black baton similar to those used by law enforcement and walked over to the hysterical woman’s cage. Raising the baton, he slammed it against the metal bars.
“Shut up,” the imbecile shouted as the weapon in his hand crashed into the cage two more times. “If you don’t settle down I’m coming in there. The drugs we give you will have healed a couple of broken legs well enough by the time you give birth to that thing.”
“Oh, please, it hurts.” The woman’s body jerked up into a sitting position with her arms still secured to the bed near her waist. She began screaming, “I think the baby’s coming.”
The man paused in mid-swing of the baton and looked closer at the woman. Beau sprang into action and ran at Dr. Evil. Sure, he could have sent a star into his eye or heart and instantly killed him, but something about the sheer maliciousness of the man’s actions had made this personal for Beau.
Swinging his leg out, Beau took Dr. Evil to the floor. Before he could jam the heel of his hand against the man’s nose, sending it into his brain, the baton lashed out and caught Beau in the temple.
Lights flashed behind Beau’s eyelids and unbalanced him from his crouched position. He ended up landing on Dr. Evil. Somewhere in the background, the woman’s screams had become insane, piercing shrieks. A deep roar echoed through the room and Beau wondered if that sound could have come from the baby.
Years of training and learning to push aside everything but what he needed to do kicked in, and Beau began a series of jabbing punches to the doctor’s face. Somehow the man managed to land another blow. Beau thought the doctor was probably aiming for the back of his head, but it only glanced off his shoulders.
The roar sounded again, and the next moment Beau was lifted off the man and set on the floor. Cascades of blood flew in all directions as a demon from the horror books Beau secretly devoured in great quantities used its crazy-long claws to send Dr. Evil’s head flying across the room.
Beau went into his fighting stance as he brought short knives to his hands. He would not let the woman or his family down by succumbing to this monster. The demon turned, revealing glowing red eyes and sharp fangs parading from its mouth.
The knives in Beau’s hands clattered to the floor. Shocked to his core, he couldn’t move or speak. Before him stood Prince Dario. Sort of. It was the prince, only more drastic, his features a little more angular, his sharp fangs hanging down over his lip.
The small hairs on the back of Beau’s neck rose when a long, agonized howl wrenched his attention from the vampire. For the second time in minutes, Beau was shocked to the core. The woman and the bed were painted in grotesque red. Blood covered her from head to toe and dripped onto the floor. It covered the small mound lying between her legs.
Dario went to the cage and grabbed the metal bars. Muscled shoulders and arms flexed when he yanked, but the bars didn’t budge.
Beau quickly picked up his knives and put them away before pulling a special card out of his pocket. “You’re lucky the cage doesn’t have juice running through it. You’d be fried by now. Let’s try this.”
He slid the card between the door and the frame, making sure the reflective silver square embedded in the card pressed against the metal of the door. Soon a click signaled the lock was disengaged, and the door swung open.
Dario rushed inside and went to the woman. With a slash of his claws, the slim chains around her wrists and ankles fell away as if they were made of paper.
The moment the woman was free, she reached down and picked up her baby. Beau’s eyes widene
d. The thing had goat’s hooves for feet and its fingers were abnormally long. They reminded Beau of a lizard’s feet. The ends of those fingers sported inch-long bone material that resembled spears. Beau couldn’t look away when the creature’s mouth opened and there were two rows of needle-like teeth.
Damn. No wonder the woman had been screaming.
Beau blinked back his amazement and got back down to business. “We need to hurry and get out of here.”
Dario nodded and went to help the woman up, but jumped back when the baby hissed at him. The vampire looked over at Beau and said, “I think we may have a problem.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out the problem. Beau moved forward and put his arm around the woman’s waist. With one of the woman’s arms over Beau’s shoulder and her other clutching her baby to her chest, between them, they managed to get her off the bed. Dario stood a few feet away, looking frustrated and helpless at not being able to help.
Once Beau had the woman on her feet, blood trickled down her legs and pooled on the floor. Wanting to help, Dario stepped closer. The baby growled and that huge mouth of teeth snapped at him.
Dario jumped back. “Why won’t it let me get close?”
“You’re a threat,” Beau answered.
Wasn’t it obvious?
“I’m not sure I understand, my darling.” Dario’s gaze traveled over Beau from his head to his toes, sending a ripple of excitement through him. “You are just as deadly.”
Beau willed his body not to react to Dario’s scrutiny or his sweet words. “I’m a bunny. It doesn’t sense any danger from me. You’re a predator. You represent everything dangerous. Now, we have to go.”
He managed to get the poor woman, along with her burden, across the room and to the lab doors. A glance behind showed him they were leaving a blood trail even his blind brother Bailey could follow. Beau started to wonder if he was going to get the woman out of this situation without her bleeding to death.
Dario opened one door for Beau. They had just made it into the hallway when a guard appeared. Before Beau could push the woman out of the way, the guard lifted his semi-automatic rifle and pressed the trigger. Rounds of bullets careened into the woman and child, sending them into a macabre dance until they fell to the floor. As the gun turned toward him, a heavy weight took Beau to the floor.